Books for the Writer in Me

I want to give you folks a heads up on what is going on with me. There’s a writing conference I’m attending in the end of January. At this conference, I have an appointment with an agent. This is good news and I’m excited for it, but what it means is that I have tasks to accomplish. I’m deep in editing mode and doing research on etiquette for this kind of meeting. If anyone has experience or advice, please pass it on. I’m also working on tags and quick captivating synopsis. But I don’t want to continue neglecting all of you lovely people. So, I thought I would write an entry about books that make me want to write.

I’ve only read two books by Alice Hoffman: The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, but her prose are so lovely it makes me want to write. She has a way of telling a story with heartbreaking honesty that makes me want to improve my own skills. She writes period pieces, her settings come alive. I feel that there isn’t a lot of dialogue in her books and the pacing purposeful. Her characters are complete. They have lives before and after the story. They have faults and abilities. Alice Hoffman intimidates me and pushes me and I love her.

I just finished reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It was a sweet book. Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones, but I found myself crying from time to time and smiling at old friends’ antics. Joe in all her ambitious Tomboyish glory made me want to write.She has these great little writing rituals that send a signal to her family if she can be disturbed or not, it’s just all together adorable. The story of her development as a writer felt true. She went from writing what she thought people wanted to read, to writing the stories she needed to share. It’s a lesson I feel I’m still learning; a lesson only experience can teach me.

The way writing is described in Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl is a comforting inspiration. The way she explains those wonderful times when the words come faster than your fingers can get them on paper or the times when they fight against you. She shows how you need to reach out of your comfort zone in order to grow. She shows that success isn’t your readership or writing what you know you can do, it’s allowing yourself to fall on your face if it means progress.

What books or authors make you want to write? And any tips on my meeting coming up?

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8 thoughts on “Books for the Writer in Me”

Congrats on the appointment with the agent. I wish I had knowledge of those types of meetings through experience to offer but alas, I have none.

I do, however, have an arsenal of authors and books who’ve inspired my writing. I’ll only mention a couple.

The first Author I read that reaffirmed my need and love of writing was Toni Morrison. I love the mysticism she puts in some of her books, I love the allusions and the bucket full of motifs.

A recent author I discovered, Scott M. Momaday has captivated me as well. His attention to detail and feeling and ability to fall out of line so flawlessly with the modern notion of chronological story telling impresses me. I end up studying how he writes more than I read the story.

I honestly haven’t read much of today’s fiction (stuff within the last ten years). I’m trying to start but I’m more inclined to pick up something by Albert Camus or Steinbeck or people around that realm. The only way I read stuff of today is if someone recommends it to me or someone reviews a book and I find the plot interesting. It’s hard to find authors today who really captivate my attention. I’m still searching.

With the exception of Jane Austen and Nathaniel Hawthorne, I also give romantic books a chance very rarely. Anything that gives me a chance to study a different type of story telling, a different type of writing, I give a chance. I can handle Hawthorne’s essays but his books make me shudder. Jane Austen . . . well, I tend to agree with Twain: ” Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

Ha! We all have our authors we just can’t love. I cannot read F. Scott Fitzgerald. I can recognize the brilliance, but he is not for me.
I read quite a bit of modern writing, I also read a lot of different genres.
Thank you for the well wishes! Fingers crossed.

One thing that worked for me at a writers conference was to have business cards with my contact info. On the back of my card, I listed my books and the awards they’d been nominated for. That way the agent I met had all my info in one place and I think it made me look professional and ready for the meeting. Just a thought. Also have your pitch ready. Practice in front of a mirror you can talk about your work in one smooth sentence. Good luck.